Revelstoke Insiders Guide to Real Estate

Can we look into a crystal ball and see the future of Revelstoke as a tourist town and/or place to live? What’s the real value of real estate in terms of likely future appreciation, liquidity, liveability and the lifestyle realized from utilization? In many ways, it seems as though the current transition and future of Revelstoke is and will be inevitable as a case study of the type of place it is, compared to many other similar towns who are further ahead in its growth curve. Luckily, as a late bloomer, Revelstoke has the advantage to learn from the patterns of other towns and attempt to guide its future towards a more civilized and livable model. The VP at Revelstoke Mountain Resort once explained to me that what made Revelstoke special among fabulous snow and geography was that it was bit harder to get to than other places. Most of the seasonal population had to make an extra effort of additional commitment to make Revelstoke vs another ski town their place come to. Its true as I can attest to having studied and skied all of Western Canada’s towns with ski hills over a 15 year period with specific emphasis of having a home there, at that time coming from Calgary and all of the implications of getting and staying there. Revelstoke was and is definitely harder to get to and from than other options, but the town and surrounding geography absolutely blow every other option out of the water, with the exception of places vastly overpopulated and overpriced to the extent that there is little true nature left to enjoy there. So Revelstoke developed later, but it has the largest vertical and some of the best most consistent snow quality in North America. World class mountain biking, paragliding, fly fishing, golfing, lakes, alpine meadows, hiking, foraging, dining….you name it are here. What do you think the eventual trajectory of real estate would be!. Of course it will follow in the path of Whisler, Aspen, Canmore, Banff, etc but the people here are wary so they are guiding hopefully a better path. Net result is that development overall is just painfully slow as it needs to be to pass all the hurdles of approval, in a short staffed world to boot. Thus, real estate has grown in price aggressively and constantly to the point that most people don’t really know what their property is worth, so they price extra high. That’s worked prior to the rise in interest rates and fall in real estate prices but things are likely to be much more scientifically appraisable now. Revelstoke is likely insulated from most real estate depressions simply due to lack of demand and that there are no other mountain resort destinations of its magnitude out there that haven’t already skyrocketed. It takes an intimate understanding of the town, the areas, the history of the real estate in question and what is happening around that property to assess real value. it takes some understanding as to current ownership and their motivations. Many list to sell simply to see if a very highly inflated price is achievable and that’s needed to motivate a sale, where others are looking to find a fair price based on averaged comparables. Representation of information can be a forest to wade through that is greatly helped by a professional with enough experience in real estate transactions, contract knowledge and even development experience to act on a buyers behalf as part of their winning team to secure them a good buy. Written by John Sparrow, of Century 21 Executives Revelstoke. John has 30 years of experience in residential single, multi and commercial real estate. He has provided strategic guidance and execution on sales an purchases of thousands of homes throughout Western Canada. Down to earth, with a true desire to be of service to his clients and the community, he works and play in Revelstoke full time. He can be reached at john.sparrow@century21.ca or 403.605.2200 anytime.